Is spin bowling a dying art in modern day cricket?

There are a lot of countries in world cricket that already don't have a decent spinner in their team, and with Warney having already retired and Murali and Kumble nearing retirement the art of spin would lose its sheen.

There are hardly any young exciting prospects around in world cricket atm, who you can say could be the next big spinner of their generation like a Murali or a Warne.

I really don't blame young kids not wanting to be a spinner, because everything nowadays is so heavily loaded in favour of batsmen that its very difficult to survive as a spinner.

The bats have become ridicously good, the boundaries are getting smaller so even the miss-hits of spinners are also going for 6's and 4's and the test matches hardly go into 4th or 5th day when the pitch is most suitable for spin bowling.

Orthodox finger spin certainly is, in a few years the only orthodox finger spinners in Test cricket will be playing as primarily batsmen - except for England, who'll still be wasting their time with a guy who'll be averaging 35+ with the ball.

As Gelman said - quality wristspinners are an extreme rarity. Look at the 1970s and 1980s - there were virtually no particularly good spinners around then, either. Since covered pitches fingerspin has only tended to be much use in the subcontinent, and Warnes are usually once-in-two\three-generation type bowlers. Muralis, of course, would be an oxymoron - there is only one Murali, and it's likely to stay that way.

So until whenever the next Warne is, I see spin outside the subcontinent being a rare commodity. It's not a case of spin "dying", just going dormant for a while. As I say - the same thing happened in the 1970s and 1980s - covered pitches were always going to do that. It's pretty remarkable that Murali happened around the same time as Warne, along of course with one of the best spinners ever to emerge from the subcontinent (Kumble), plus the the first occurance of regular Doosra-bowlers (Saqlain and Harbhajan).

There are a lot of countries in world cricket that already don't have a decent spinner in their team, and with Warney having already retired and Murali and Kumble nearing retirement the art of spin would lose its sheen.

There are hardly any young exciting prospects around in world cricket atm, who you can say could be the next big spinner of their generation like a Murali or a Warne.

So is the art of spin slowly but surely dying?

Bangladesh got some young exciting prospect spinners. And so does Sri lanka i'm pretty sure.

As we all know three highest wicket-takers in test cricket history are all spinners (1.warne 2.Murali 3.Kumble {he is yet behind McGrath but he would soon overtake him to become 3rd highest wicket taker in test cricket history} ).

So obviously spinners hold an important place in today's era too, but the next generation of spinners around in world cricket don't look capable to follow the foot-steps of these 3 great spinners.

I feel sorry for whomever has to follow up Murali. Warne at least has MacGill, who while not Warne, is still a very good spinner. And his loss is mititgated by the fact that Australia are still a fantastic team without him. Without Murali...SL will really hurt.

Originally Posted by KungFu_Kallis

Peter Siddle top scores in both innings....... Matthew Wade gets out twice in one ball